It
should come as no surprise that under-recognized post-punk band Crash Course in
Science met while attending art school in Philadelphia in 1979. Band members
Dale Feliciello, Mallory Yago, and Michael Zodorozny experimented with the
then-burgeoning musical genre by replacing the jangular and distorted guitars,
rhythmic drums, and synthesizer beats with childhood toys and common kitchen
appliances. Their choice of instruments was born out of curiosity as much as
necessity: How could they create the music they wanted with their limited
student resources?

Thankfully,
their choices resulted in a sound uniquely their own: peculiarly original
minimalism vocals mixed with danceable and downright catchy beats. Coupled with
a need to express and explore their interest in performance art and music,
their final product in such songs as “Cakes in the Home,” and “Cardboard Lamb” resonated
for years after. The band is frequently regarded as an influential force in the
electro sound and the techno industrial genres.

I
recently spoke with Zodorozny about their initial interest in performance art
and how it influenced everything from their live shows to the creation of their
Frankenstein-like instruments.

You've been classified as
a post-punk band. Would you consider that to be an accurate term for your sound
and aesthetics?

Crash
Course in Science was formed in 1979 so we would consider being referred to as
post-punk band accurate. We were
inspired by punk-rock music and we we’re all big fans of the genre. We were
also inspired by the work of Brian Eno prior to the punk explosion. As artists and songwriters, Crash Course
in Science became a format for our expression.

Can you tell me a little
more about the performance art aspect tied to the band? What was/is your
history with performance art?

The
three of us performed personal performance art pieces. Dale performed his
“Thunderthighs” piece at galleries and clubs in New York and Philadelphia.
Mallory performed as a character called “Eva Stevens” in some of her solo
performances. I performed solo material at New York’s Pyramid Club incorporating slide projections and sets.

The
performance art aspect of the band evolved as an approach to playing live shows.
There were certain songs like “Bumpster,” for example, that really called for
more of a performance than just playing the song on the instruments. The song
had to do with pent-up frustrations. With a manic beat on a single snare drum,
“Bumpster” was the opening number in a lot of our early shows.

We
would use props at times for certain songs, for example, the song “Beat Filter,”
which was another song for the early shows, we wore welding masks as a way to
depict the lyrics and content. For the song “Kitchen Motors,” we used a vintage
mixer on stage at times, along with a power drill, which was used for its
sounds. Just by the nature of the songs and music we were writing, the aspect
of performance was always on our minds.

How did performance art
add to the creation of your music and the development of your sound? What are
some instances in which you incorporated performative gestures into your music?

When
CCIS began, each song seemed to depict a scene, character, or situation, so the
possibility of how to perform the songs was on our minds at their inception. When
the songs started to take on more of an aggressive sound, the performance of
the song incorporated that.

When
we wrote “Factory Forehead,” from the EP Signals From Pier Thirteen, it was a
conceived as a depiction of the sounds of an exploding factory, so with that as
the song’s situation it called for a more dramatic performance of the song.

The
song “No More Hollow Doors” from the album Near Marineland, was based on a
dream I had of being a stowaway. The music has a heightened, paranoid feel to it and the performance reflects
that. In the more recent performances of that song we have added some special
lighting effects to visually depict the song on stage.

You’re distinct for your
inclusion of toy instruments in your music. Why did you decide to include toys
in your music? What types of toys were chosen over others? Were the choices
born out of aesthetic or symbolic reasons?

In
the beginning of Crash Course in Science, as well as for my early personal
tapes, the use of toy instruments grew more or less out of necessity. A lot can
happen depending on how an instrument is recorded. The instrument can sound or appear
to be something else. In my own tapes, I experimented with this concept quite a
bit, using a toy drum set, a toy piano, toy keyboards, and an acoustic guitar, but
making recordings in one’s bedroom is very different than playing live.

With
CCIS we wanted to be able to perform the songs in a live setting. So we began
to use the toy instruments in such a way that their sounds would dramatically
project because they were amplified, using a microphone, or by plugging them
directly into amplifiers. In the beginning, we had several toy keyboards and a
toy synthesizer, which we still have, and use occasionally. At that time we
also used a real drum set, an electric guitar, and a very inexpensive rhythm
machine. Whenever we would see a toy that looked like it had potential, we
would try to buy it and test it out. The toys were less expensive than real
instruments, so there was that appeal as well. We tested out a lot of
toys, some worked out well and some did not.

Can you go into specifics
about more of the homemade gear made to create your music? Why did you feel it
was important to create rather than just rely on standard instruments?

After
using the store-bought toy instruments for a while we wanted them to be more
versatile, so Dale began to alter them so they would make additional sounds.
It’s something that’s known now as “circuit bending”, but back then, it wasn’t
really done that often to the best of our knowledge. This opened the door for
using the shell of a toy keyboard as a base, and putting a homemade synthesizer
inside of it. Dale built all the original homemade synthesizers we used and
continue to use currently. They each have a different color housing and we
refer to them by their corresponding colors, “the orange,” ”the blue,” “the
gray,” “the white,” and so forth.

The
progression to bent instrumentation was a natural one for us. Those types of
sounds represent our most direct feelings. When we tried to incorporate
standard synthesizers into our music they ended up being used more peripherally,
if at all.

How long did it take you
to create your videos, specifically the one for “Cardboard Lamb?” What was the idea behind that video?

The “Cardboard Lamb” music video was a fun
project for us. We brainstormed some ideas and made a storyboard. We shot a
storyboard in photographic slides of the different scenes and then projected the
slides in sequence and made some revisions to the order of things until we had
things they way we wanted. We worked on the storyboard for a few weeks off and
on but shot the video in 2 days, one day for the exterior shots and one for the
composited shots. When we shot the video with a cameraman we basically knew
what we wanted. The video was shot in New York City. The opening shot is the
Con Ed plant smokestacks on 14th street in Manhattan. The sound and
rhythm of that song suggested transportation to us so we wanted to include
scenes of trains and boats along with some industrial imagery. We felt the
combination of that along with an actual cardboard lamb was a nice juxtaposition.
The scene with the spiking of the lamb was an idea that came out of our
discussions. At the end when we erase the drawing of the lamb on the blackboard
it’s as if we’re eluding that the whole idea may be better left undone, framing
it as if it never happened.

How do you feel about your
large following in the visual arts community?

We
are very grateful for the following we have. It is a good feeling to know that
people are interested in what we have done in the past and what we are doing currently. Every artist wants to have
longevity with their work and it’s a thrill and a privilege to be continuing
with Crash Course in Science, especially knowing that there’s an interest in what
we’re doing, it’s wonderful!